


All that we are, all that we need (they're different things)

by primordialsoup



Series: Help me lose my mind [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Amnesia a la Vex, M/M, Making Possibly Bad Choices, Mentally unstable character, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-04-18 23:20:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primordialsoup/pseuds/primordialsoup
Summary: Rezyl was a thread of salvation, a step towards something he’d been missing and he fell into him like a drop of water into the ocean.
Relationships: Kabr/Pahanin/Praedyth (Destiny), Pahanin/Rezyl Azzir, Pahanin/Rezyl Azzir (Destiny)
Series: Help me lose my mind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610071
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	All that we are, all that we need (they're different things)

**Author's Note:**

> look at me, making myself sad and creating rarepairs to torture myself with

It would be the biggest misunderstanding, the biggest mistake said and repeated for decades, after it happened. Pahanin did not run away. He was pushed, dragged off by his cloak, kicking and screaming and crying himself hoarse.  
  
Kabr’s back had been a fractured kaleidoscope of light, shining brightly in the doorway. It lingered on Pahanin’s tear-streaked cheeks like a lingering kiss and he screamed in pain until he could no longer see him.  
  
His eyes were blurred by tears and his own fear, not for himself, for _ them _ . For Kabr dying, becoming undone in a way that had nothing to do with mere death. For Praedyth, begging him to get up, turn around and run as far as he can, who was both there and already fading from both sight and mind.  
  
A push and Pahanin was shoved forward and he runs, because that’s what he’s been doing all this time wasn’t it? He was fleeing this place and if he heard a second set of boots running after him, he thought it must be an echo of him.  
  
He takes a turn, and the exit is _ right there _ , and he thinks he sees a hand reaching for him and then he’s gone, falling backwards out of the gate with his body being wracked with shivers and tears falling from his eyes and an awful roiling of his stomach. He retches, mind running a mile a minute, buzzing with panic and overwhelming fear, and still he thinks of nothing.  
  
Pahanin stumbles to his feet, uneven steps taking him away.  
  
He ran.  
  
He felt his mind clawing at him, somehow that was wrong.  
  
\---  
  
Frankly, most of the things Pahanin did left him a touch malcontent. Like when he leaned too far back in his chair when he sat there for hours, writing and scribbling, and then his tailbone was numb but he could still move and feel it. Off, somehow.  
  
Still, he wrote and he talked and when his notes started going around Hunter circles and even quoted back at him, he decided to compile them, all pretty and neat and then he turned over his shoulder to show off his handiwork, delighted, only to freeze, staring at the wall with eyes glassy and words dying on his tongue.  
  
He chokes on names he can’t speak or wrap his mind around. If he hadn’t already been sitting at his desk he doesn’t think his knees would have held him up. He swallows carefully and returns to his papers, he still has to bind this before taking it to be printed.  
  
When other Hunters ask him what he’s gonna name it, he says it’s a mistake. Just a mistake.  
  
They call it Pahanin Errata without asking him.  
  
\---  
  
He starts spending time in the Crucible after a stretch of insufferable discomfort. As if throwing himself into a fray of gunfire and blood will fill the space of wrongness in his chest. It helps, in a way. He doesn’t have space for idle thought between bullets grazing his head and poking holes in his cloak.  
  
Pahanin dances between fire and lead, threading Void in his fingers and everything falls behind him. They get up again soon enough and then they catch him in the back when Pahanin begins to get distracted again. It helps.  
  
It’s just another one of those times, with his mind creeping back into something lost and _ gone _ that Pahanin gets pulled out of the line of fire. The breath is knocked out of his lungs and he’s left looking up at broad shoulders, holding up a barricade of light. The visor of the helmet turns to him and the Titan’s voice is lost to the static roaring in Pahanin’s ears. 

He sees the Titan tense and then leap up, handcannon barking loudly enough to cut through the buzz. It shines silvery gunmetal and Pahanin looks up at the figure outlined in the sunlight, protecting him and tears prickle at his eyes.  
  
A cry rips from his lips and he pulls at the Void in his hands, half-formed and volatile. But the arrow hits the mark and the Titan puts them all down, fast and clean. The match is called and then he’s picked up, light as if a baby and not a full-grown man in leathers and armor, weighed down by guns and knives _ (and his own terrible mind). _  
  
The Titan cheers loudly next to his ear, booming and deep but Pahanin’s eyes were planted on the man’s shoulders, on the back that his hands had wrapped around instinctively when he’d been pulled off the ground.  
  
Rezyl was a thread of salvation, a step towards something he’d been missing and he fell into him like a drop of water into the ocean.  
  
It helps.  
  
\---

Late at night, they lay in Pahanin’s bed with him tracing fingers over scars and the lines on Rezzyl’s back. The man hums at him, relaxed but with his head turned to look at him with a curious glimmer in his eyes.  
  
Pahanin brushes his lips over the jutting bone of the shoulder, down the bumps of the spine and his fingers trail a mirroring path over ribs and sides.  
  
Rezyl’s fingers scape over his scalp and then fingers cradle Pahanin’s jaw. He follows the gentle tug, climbing over the man’s lap to rest against his chest. There’s a look on Rezyl’s face, sad and damning and when lips brush his own the ache in his chest flares.  
  
Thumbs clear away the stray tears from his eyes. His chest heaves and his mind is buzzing and Pahanin doesn’t want to think about it anymore. He pushes and kisses harder, his fingers leaving bruises on Rezyl’s arms.  
  
Rezyl returns the favour with a rumble of amusement and deep bites that make Pahanin arch.  
  
He keeps expecting the sting of Arc on his hips or the warmth of Solar on his back and is constantly surprised when the chill of the Void creeps over his sides. Pahanin lets his attention get swept away in Rezyl’s touch, his undemanding teeth and dark eyes.  
  
It helps.  
  
\---  
  
It takes a long time, but Rezyl returns from Luna, maybe not as whole, not as gentle, but he returns and Pahanin is all too happy to see him. And if the current of satisfaction that he’s finally not the only one broken is too strong, he tries to bury it. Doesn’t let Rezyl see, doesn’t let anybody see.  
  
He falls into the Titan just as easily, just as readily. But the bruises on his skin don’t feel as right the next morning. His mind wanders a tad too much, but not enough to forget to peck Rezyl on the cheek as they leave.  
  
Two blocks later Pahanin is heaving his breakfast in the trash of an alley and his fingers tremble. He hasn’t ever kissed Rezyl goodbye before (_no need, no need, when they see each other every day in the Crucible and then the lounge and then the bar and then Pahanin’s sheets) _ and the buzz in his ears won’t subside.  
  
\---  
  
This time he’d been late dropping into the queue for a match. Shaxx sent them down in different teams. Pahanin cocked his head at Rezyl across the divide but doesn’t get a response. He pays it little mind.

The bulletfire keeps his attention, marginally. The scoreboard is not even on the fringes of his attention, the announcement of the deaths of the rest of the team passing through his ears like something irrelevant.  
  
He peeks around the corner, gun at the ready and starts. Rezyl is standing at the far end, fingers wrapped around a thorn of a gun, as if waiting for him. There’s a voice screaming over the announcement broadcast, but Pahanin only has eyes for the hand reaching out for him.  
  
The gloved fingers curl under his jaw, unlatching his helmet slowly, almost reverently. He breathes in the unfiltered air and the scent of blood and smoke fills his nose. Pahanin chokes on the horrid smell of rot. He coughs, looking up at Rezyl slowly taking off his own helmet.  
  
His eyes sting at the awful smell but he makes out the small smile on Rezyl’s lips and he tries to return it, if becoming a bit confused at the continued silence of the arena. His attention strays again when Rezyl dips down to kiss him, all teeth, demanding and taking the breath straight from his lungs.  
  
Pahanin closes his eyes, surrendering to the feeling with nary a thought about his heavy limbs or his head getting lighter and lighter. The bitter taste of ash lingers on his tongue.  
  
A hand wraps around his waist to keep him standing and he’s leaning against an armored chest heavily, but he only knows that by thinking. His body feels as if floating, drifting over a dark lake that he can’t peer into.  
  
The kiss breaks and he hears a click next to his ear. When Rezyl smiles at him, empty and cruelly, he tries to reach up to smooth out the ugly lines around his eyes. Instead his mouth forms over a name he doesn’t know how is pronounced and his mind remembers a hand at his back, pushing him forward.  
  
The gun fires and then he remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> hey the VoG boys make me sad any day of the week and Rezyl was so good before he stepped on Luna, then I get my mitts on them and make it worse...  



End file.
